A Thin Line
by darnedchild
Summary: A short fic for Molly Hooper Appreciation Week Part Deux - Day 6 - ... Forever (Fanworks focusing on relationships, either long or short term, of any variety) A look at how Molly's relationship with her abusive mother effects her adult life. TW: domestic abuse.


**A/N:** I debated posting this today. Wibbled quite a lot and was pretty sure I wasn't going to when I went to bed last night, but then I talked to a few people, including my husband, and they told me to just do it so . . . Here it is.

 **A Thin Line**

 **…** **between love and hate**

 **Molly Hooper Appreciation Week Part Deux -** **Day 6 - _ Forever (Fanworks focusing on relationships, either long or short term, of any variety)**

She doesn't know why she did it.

(That's a lie, she knows exactly why, and it has little to do with what Sherlock has done to himself—although that is part of it—and more to do with her life, her past . . . her not so forgotten secret.)

Her hands sting, the palms still tingle.

"How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with?"

"And how dare you betray the love of your friends? Say you're sorry.'

He speaks, his words meant to stab at what he perceives to be her weakest point. Her hands clench as she fights back the urge to slap him again. The dead look in his eye is what keeps her hands still.

"Stop it. Just stop it."

Everyone in the room thinks she's still talking to Sherlock. If he weren't coming down from his high, he might have understood that the words were meant for her alone.

No one notices her slip from the lab after Sherlock has made his odd exit. No one sees her hurry to the closest bathroom. No one hears her vomit up the contents of her stomach the moment she trips into a stall.

The voice of her mother echoes in her ears. _I always knew you would take after me, girl. No matter what your father tried to tell you. Blood will out._

She finishes her shift, then tells her supervisor that there's a family emergency and she won't be in the next few days. She's got weeks of vacation time saved up, he lets her go with only a mild protest.

By the time she's begun to feel comfortable in her own skin again and returns to work, Sherlock has been shot.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

Visiting hours are long over when she creeps into his room. It pays to be friends with the night nurse on duty. She pulls a chair up to his bedside and watches him sleep for a few minutes, an hour, who knows.

Eventually he stirs, his pale eyes are unfocused when they first open, then she feels their full weight on her when he realizes she's there.

She wants to ask how he's feeling, what happened, is he going to be okay?

What comes out is, "I'm sorry."

He seems to know exactly what she's talking about. "It's all right, Molly. I deserved it."

Her entire body tenses, the memory of bile teases at the back of her throat. "No. Don't you ever say that. You may have deserved to be yelled at, and argued with, and told what a fucking moron you are, but you didn't . . . I shouldn't have hit you."

His eyes light up in understanding. He knows. He knows what she's not saying, what she's never said to him or anyone since she and her father packed up their things and left her mother.

He edges his hand across the bedding toward her. A peace offering and forgiveness rolled into one, she thinks.

She takes it. Holds on to it as if she's afraid to let him go. His eyes flutter shut and he falls back asleep soon after. She stays another thirty minutes, holding his hand the entire time.

When she comes back the next night, he's already done a runner. _Idiot._

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

She's extra careful around him for the next few weeks, but Sherlock seems to have accepted the incident as his due. (She knew that feeling, knew what it was like to believe she'd done something to earn a pinch, a slap, a push down the stairs.)

Something happened after he was shot. She doesn't know what, no one feels the need to tell her, and the consistently angry look on John's face keeps her from even thinking about asking. All she knows is that John is living at Baker Street again, no one will talk about Mary, and sometimes Sherlock looks as if he's going to break apart when he thinks no one is watching.

It's mid-November when she finally begins to understand what's draining him so. She's at Baker Street, has just asked Sherlock how Mary is doing, as she hasn't been able to meet up with the other woman in more than a week? He answers (She's well, all things considering. Very tired, understandably.) and John storms into the kitchen from wherever he'd been lurking.

His lips are twisted in rage, eyes burning, his hands are fists. "How dare you talk to her behind my back! You're supposed to be **my** friend, Sherlock!" His face turns red, and she shrinks back from his rage even though he's not even looking in her direction.

Her first instinct is to fold in on herself, make herself as small as possible so that he won't notice her. Won't turn on her.

Then she notices that Sherlock hasn't reacted. He's not surprised by John's outburst, it's not a new experience for him. He doesn't flinch away from John's anger, but he doesn't defend himself when the smaller man encroaches on his space. He's letting John rant and rave, takes it as if . . . as if he feels like he deserves it.

Something snaps into place inside her. The little girl that tries so hard to hide from her mother's wrath transforms back into the confident woman she's slowly become over the last ten years, and she physically shoves herself into the space between John and Sherlock's bodies.

Almost immediately Sherlock puts his hands on her shoulders and pulls her back against his chest.

John has stopped yelling. His mouth snapping shut mid-word at the sight. He blinks, sets his mouth in a sharp line, and storms out of the room.

She slumps, her earlier surge of protective defiance gone. For a moment, she thinks she can feel Sherlock's cheek against her hair, his hands gripping her shoulders just a touch harder. Then he steps away.

"Don't ever do that again. Don't ever put yourself between me and a threat again."

She finds it telling that he's just equated John with a threat. But hadn't she done the same thing?

It was the tone of voice, the look in his eyes, the poorly suppressed memories of her childhood.

She doesn't really think John is abusive, honestly, just very bad at dealing with his feelings. But when you couple someone who is known to blow up when he's very upset, and someone (or a pair of someones in this case) who has been on the receiving end of too many "This is your fault! You made me do this!" outbursts . . .

"Why do you let him treat you like that? And don't say it's because you deserve it."

He shrugs. "John needs an outlet, and I can take it. It's the least I can do."

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

"I'm sorry."

She tenses at the sound of a voice, not Sherlock's but still familiar and instantly recognized, from behind her. She doesn't look up from the titration she's working on. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

John moves closer until she can just see the leg of his jeans in her peripheral vision. She finally sets her sample aside to turn to him.

"I already did that. Apologized to him, I mean. I took a long walk and realized I was acting like an arse, and apologized as soon as I got back. You were already gone or I would have . . ." He trails off.

She waits to see if he's going to say anything more. He doesn't. It's probably for the best.

She nods once, sharply, and offers him a hesitant and not completely sincere smile.

There are no more invitations to Baker Street while John is in residence, and she notices that Sherlock watches her closely whenever the three of them are together in the lab. Cautious, almost . . . protective.

Sherlock's late night visits to her home continue. He stops kicking her out of her own bed, insisting there's room enough for two. She agrees because the winter is cold and he asked.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

Somehow Mary is back in the fold.

She's pleased about it, happy to be able to talk to the woman she considers her friend without having to sneak around behind John's back, as if she'd been doing something wrong. Mary is heavily pregnant.

Strangely, she's not jealous of her friend's impending motherhood. She always thought she would be, if one of her close friends got pregnant. She's not sure she'll ever be comfortable with the thought of having a baby of her own. In the back of her head there will probably always be the worry that she might screw up her own child's life as badly as . . . Instead, she's simply happy for her friend.

They bond over their lack of family, she never mentions that her mother is still alive.

Mary and John are already calling her Auntie Molly. The incident at Baker Street is (mostly) forgotten.

Sherlock shows up one night, insisting he needs to stay over so he can think. She almost asks him why he can't do that at his place, she knows there is no John or Janine there to distract him anymore; but she doesn't really mind his presence. She's grown quite used to it.

She leaves him to do whatever he does on her sofa and curls up into her dad's old armchair to read.

"Who was it?"

Her glasses slip down her nose as she looks at him over the top of her book, her contacts removed at the same time she'd put on her jammies. "I don't know, I haven't even made it to the murder bit yet."

Sherlock turns his head to look at her, he's been laying across her sofa with his feet on the arm for half an hour. "Not the book. Who hurt you? I've heard you discuss your father with fondness, so I'd say it wasn't him. I've never heard you mention your mother, not once. Odds lie in her direction, but it could have been an uncle, family friend, boyfriend . . ."

She turns her attention back to her book, although she can't focus on a single word. "She had a temper. Dad knew about it before they were married, but she'd always managed to keep it in check before-before me. One of my first memories is sitting on a blanket. She put me in a room with no toys, no picture books, just the blanket. Every time I tried to get up, or started to cry, she'd spank me. I remember one day, I had to go to the bathroom, I was maybe four or five? I knew that even if I managed to sneak to the potty, she'd hear it flush and she'd know I left my blanket. If I left the mess in the toilet and didn't flush, she'd still know. I was trying to figure out which would be worse for me, but in the end it didn't matter. I couldn't hold it, and she punished me anyway."

"Molly."

She ignores him. "The first time she hit me hard enough for it to show I was seven. Something got broke or I got my clothes dirty, I don't remember what started it. I do remember hearing that it was my fault, she hit me because I made her do it. She told dad I fell, which was technically true as she'd knocked me off balance and I fell into the corner of the kitchen table."

"Molly." She hears his voice break, and she knows she can't look at him now or she won't be able to get it all out.

"Everyone thought I was just very clumsy, and by the time I was old enough to tell, she'd made it clear that no one would believe me. That the next time would be even worse if I said anything. She made me believe I was stupid and ugly and a burden. She broke my arm when I was fourteen. I was scared to death, threw a lamp at her. She laughed and told me that she knew I had it in me. I sat in the driveway, crying, until Dad came home. I wanted witnesses if she came after me again. Dad, I think he suspected before then but he didn't want to believe it was true, you know? But I flinched every time she went near me while we sat in emergency, and he finally . . . He packed some suitcases and took us to stay with his sister the next day. Mum put everything of ours out on the lawn and set fire to it that night, so we really had no reason to go back after that."

She closes her book and sets it aside, finally looking up at him. "Sometimes, sometimes I worry that she's right."

He's off the couch and pulling her out of the chair in seconds. His big hand wraps around the back of her head and tucks it under his chin. "You're nothing like her."

Even though she wants to, she doesn't cry.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

Rosamund Mary Watson is perfect.

She takes her responsibilities as a godmother very seriously. Little dresses, hair bows. She even gets one of those Knitting for Dummies books and tries to teach herself how to make a baby blanket. That does not end well.

John asks her to babysit while he and Mary join Sherlock on a case. She gladly says yes, always happy to spend some time with Rosie.

Mary . . . doesn't come home.

Mrs Hudson arrives at around midnight to watch Rosie. John has been home for over an hour, but he's shut himself in his room.

She takes a cab home; and isn't surprised to find Sherlock curled up on her bed, still wearing his Belstaff.

She changes for the night and crawls in beside him, wordlessly pulling him into her arms so that he can rest his head against her breast. She hopes the steady beat of her heart provides him some comfort.

She's almost asleep before he starts to talk. He tells her everything. Mary's former life, shooting that horrible man, following Mary to hell and back. Then his voice stutters and she can hear the tears threatening to fall as he tells her about that evening in the aquarium. How Mary pushed him out of the way and ended up dying. For him.

She knows from what he doesn't say that his relationship with John has been torn asunder. She presses gentle kisses to his forehead and helps him remove his coat, shoes, and jacket before tucking him under the covers and back into her arms. He pulls her close and softly whispers "Thank you" against her neck.

Her heart breaks for Mary, for John, for Rosie, for Sherlock, for her. It shatters into a million pieces and she gives herself permission to let it go for one night. She'll need to be strong for everyone else in the morning.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

She hasn't seen Sherlock in weeks, possibly more than a month, not since the day he came by the Watson house and she'd had to turn him away. It had broken her heart, but she'd respected John's wishes.

Sherlock called her two weeks ago, given her the oddest instructions, but she's always been used to him asking for the most random things. She shrugged and made arrangements and shows up with an ambulance just as he'd asked.

The sight of him, wasting away and high off his arse . . . She doesn't hit him this time, thank God. She stares at him from across the tiny ambulance space and asks why. He makes his excuses, he always has excuses; and she simply nods, too tired and numb to even protest. Nothing she says make a difference, nothing she does. She means nothing to him and her words would carry no weight. Why even try? She silently examines Sherlock and it isn't until they're parked and John reappears that her spirit returns.

"For Christ's Sake, Sherlock, it's not a game!"

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

She's exhausted. She doesn't remember the last time she's had more than three hours of sleep at a time. Sherlock's been released from the hospital (Makes a right arse of himself until the doctors all but push him out the door the second he's well enough.) and spent his first night out at her place. She has no clue if he slept curled around her for his comfort or hers, she doesn't care.

Her eight hour shift at Barts seemed to stretch to twice that long before she's forced to rush to John's to pick up Rosie from the neighbour.

There are times when the infant cries and wails that she just wants to call John and tell him that she's done. She can't do this anymore. When she agreed to be a godmother, she didn't think it would mean . . . this. It's too much.

It's not enough.

No matter how hard it is, no matter how much she wants to quit, she knows she will never abandon Rosie. Never.

For a brief moment, it makes her think that someday, perhaps, she **would** make a good mother.

John comes home sometime around ten, he's been at the clinic since noon. He's tired, she can tell.

She lets him get changed and showered, makes sure there's a sandwich and crisps waiting for him on the kitchen counter because that's what she does. She steps in to take care of people because someone has to. Because no one was able to do it for her all those years ago.

He thanks her, for the food and for watching Rosie, and helps her slide her coat on as she gets ready to leave.

"You're a good man, John."

He smiles, confusion making his mouth purse a bit. "Thank you? Why do I get the feeling there's going to be a but coming?"

"No but. Not yet." Her hands fiddle with the strap of her bag as she pulls it over her shoulder. Even as the words begin to pour from her lips she wonders if she'll be able to go through with it. "I care about you, I really do. You, and Rosie, and Mary. And I know you love Sherlock like he's family. Just as I know he loves you. Which is why it hurts me to know what you did to him."

"What I-what?" He blinks, as if he truly has no clue what she's talking about.

"Did you forget I examined him, at your request, in the ambulance?" She's building up steam now. "I know what damage he'd already done to himself when he stumbled off with you and that creep Smith. You didn't break two of his ribs 'pulling him away' from Smith. I saw the bruises when I rewrapped his ribs last night, I recognize the signs of a man who has been beaten. I also saw the lack of defensive wounds. He let you beat him, let you kick him while he was already down."

She steps into his space. He wasn't as tall as Sherlock, it isn't as difficult to meet his eyes to make sure he knows that she means every word she says. "But I won't. And it's because I care about you that I'm going to give you this warning; if you ever, ever lay another hand on him in anger, I will destroy you."

He huffs and she smiles a nasty smile. "Think about what I do all day, John. I can make sure they will spend six months trying to recover your scattered body parts from all over this city. Do we understand each other?"

He narrows his eyes, and she thinks he's going to argue or threaten her back. Then he deflates and nods, just once. She steps away, needing to put more space between them.

"I'll understand if you'd rather I not take care of Rosie for awhile . . ."

John considers it for a moment. "No, it's-it's fine. I know how you feel about him."

Her head snaps up as her hand stills on her coat buttons.

"I'd probably have threatened the same if someone else had . . . It won't happen again, Molly. I swear it."

She nods and walks out the door without saying goodbye. She throws up in a public trash bin less than a block away.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

The call from a solicitor is unexpected and unwelcome. Her mother has died.

All she can think is "good". Somehow, she manages not to say it out loud.

"As her only surviving relative, the estate will of course-"

"I don't want it." The venom in her voice should be easy enough to hear over the phone.

"Pardon?"

"I don't care what happens to any of it, I refuse to accept responsibility for it." She hangs up the phone.

Tea. Tea will . . . Well, it won't help, but it will give her something to do with her hands.

She cries hot, horrible tears. Made worse because they aren't tears of grief, they're tears of relief.

Her phone rings and she thinks for one second it's the solicitor again. It's not. It's worse.

She ignores it—him—and lets the call go to her voicemail.

It rings again.

She hopes, futilely, that he'll hear the strain in her voice and listen when she says she's having a bad day and just agree to call back some other time.

"-just say these words."

Simple enough instructions. Perhaps it won't hurt to play along for a moment and then she can get back to moping or celebrating or whatever she'd been planning to do. "What words?"

"I love you."

For one split second she knows she's moments away doing something she'll regret. She pulls the phone away from her ear and tells him to leave her alone as she prepares to cut him off.

He's talking, and for some stupid reason she's listening.

"Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making fun of me?" After everything she'd done for him over the years, everything she's already forgiven . . .

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

"I love you." She whispers the words into the phone, lips nearly pressed to the screen as if they were meant for his ears alone.

She's not surprised when he hangs up immediately. He's never been one to waste time when he's on a case.

She's thankful that she's not supposed to pick up Rosie until that evening, and then only if John wasn't back from wherever he and Sherlock had buggered off to for their case.

She takes a shower, hoping the sound of the water will drown out the echo of Sherlock's final "I love you" in her head.

It doesn't.

The phone call she's half-expecting/half-dreading comes, but it's not from John. Greg, of all people, tells her that John will be going to hospital to get checked out, and John needs her to pick up Rosie because he may not be home before morning. John wants—no, needs—her to stay at his house, it's very important they don't go back to Molly's. Greg doesn't know, or won't say, why.

She does it for Rosie, because Rosie is a child and should not be punished for the actions of her insensitive godfather and his irritating friend . . . who was going to hospital.

Oh, God, what if they were both hurt, she wonders. Greg hadn't said anything about Sherlock, but he'd only called to pass on a message about Rosie's care.

She spends the entire night after Rosie's asleep curled up in on John's sofa. Waiting. Dreading. Sick to her stomach.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

"Molly."

She knows that voice. She's heard it hundreds of times. He's tired, raw, exhausted. She can tell all that without even opening her eyes, she knows him that well.

"Molly, wake up."

Arms begin to slide under her shoulders and in her head she realizes he's probably just trying to pick her up or make her more comfortable, but her body reacts on protective instinct and she's pushing away from him hard enough to make him stumble. She's on the floor, arms up and head tucked, before her eyes fully open.

Sherlock steps back, palms out, and silently waits for her to get to her knees, then stand.

"I've startled you." He's stating the obvious, never a good sign with him.

She looks around, orienting herself. Still John's sitting room, the sky is still dark. "Where's John? Is he okay? Greg said he needed to go to hospital?" She wants to ask if Sherlock's okay, but the words stick in her throat.

"We had a really stressful day, then he got shoved in a well and almost drowned. Probably shock and a bit of hypothermia. Mostly a precaution really."

Not as reassuring as he probably thought it would be.

"And you?" she asks as she wraps her cardigan closer around her middle.

"I did not end up in a well, so you could say I faired a bit better than him. Mycroft is recovering at home, he refused to seek treatment."

"Mycroft?" she gasps. "What the hell happened to you, all of you?" Somehow, she's managed to temporarily forget their earlier phone call. Or, perhaps, she's just let herself pretend she's forgotten.

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then he nods his head as if he's made some sort of decision, and opens it again. "I'll explain, everything. Just, can I ask one more thing from you first?"

Warning bells go off in her head. She takes a step back and nearly falls over the arm of the sofa. "Sherlock." It comes out in a low, warning, pleading tone.

"I know I hurt you, but I need . . . Please, may I hold you? For just a moment, I just need to feel you, to know you're safe. Please." He looks so sincere, so unsure.

Against every self-preservation instinct she has, she closes the distance between them and steps into his arms.

She feels his lips against her hair as he says, "I love you."


End file.
